Honest Services Fraud before the Supreme Court
What to Expect and What is at Stake

Washington, DC (December 2, 2009) --

The Honorable Richard Thornburgh K&L Gates LLP 

Brady Dugan
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP  

Jonathan Marcus
Covington & Burling LLP  

Richard Craig Smith Fulbright & Jaworski LLP 

This program will examine prosecutors'' interpretation and enforcement of the federal "honest services fraud" statute in anticipation of the Supreme Court''s December 8 oral arguments in the highly publicized Weyhrauch and Black appeals.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009
9:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. EST  

M.J. Murdock Center for Free Enterprise
Washington Legal Foundation
2009 Massachusetts Avenue, NW 

Continental breakfast will be served Please RSVP by Dec. 1 to candrews@wlf.org

A recording of the event can be viewed, via Internet Explorer, here.

Biographies  

The Honorable Richard Thornburgh is Of Counsel to the international law firm K&L Gates LLP in its Washington, D.C. office and Chairman of WLF’s Legal Policy Advisory Board. During a 25-year career in public service, Hon. Thornburgh served as Governor of Pennsylvania, Attorney General of the United States, and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Brady Dugan is a partner with the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in its Washington, D.C. office, where he focuses on antitrust and fraud related crimes. Before joining Akin Gump, Mr. Dugan served for over 15 years at the U.S. Department of Justice in the Antitrust Division, where he investigated and prosecuted a wide variety of white collar federal crimes including bribery, conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Jonathan Marcus is Of Counsel to Covington & Burling LLP in its Washington, D.C. office, where he represents clients in the firm’s appellate and Supreme Court litigation group. Mr. Marcus joined Covington following nine years at the U. S. Department of Justice, where he argued five cases before the Supreme Court of the United States as an Assistant to the Solicitor General and numerous cases in the federal courts of appeals. Mr. Marcus also authored the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ amicus brief in the Supreme Court in Conrad M. Black, et al. v. United States, in which NACDL argues that the honest-services provision of the mail fraud statute is unconstitutional.

Richard Craig Smith is a partner at Fulbright & Jaworski LLP in its Washington, D.C. office, where he is chair of the firm’s Global White Collar Crime and Government Investigations practice group. Mr. Smith was the former Acting Chief and Principal Deputy Chief for Litigation of the Fraud Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division, where he supervised the litigation activities of all trial attorneys in the investigation, indictment, and trial of various fraud-related criminal matters, including honest services fraud. Mr. Smith has 20 years of trial experience, handling over 100 criminal and civil cases in state and federal courts throughout the U.S.

Contacts

NACDL Communications Department

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is the preeminent organization advancing the mission of the criminal defense bar to ensure justice and due process for persons accused of crime or wrongdoing. A professional bar association founded in 1958, NACDL's many thousands of direct members in 28 countries – and 90 state, provincial and local affiliate organizations totaling up to 40,000 attorneys – include private criminal defense lawyers, public defenders, military defense counsel, law professors and judges committed to preserving fairness and promoting a rational and humane criminal legal system.